


Perfect Carlos

by JosieRuby1



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6129058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieRuby1/pseuds/JosieRuby1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos feels pressured by Cecil's insistence that he is perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect Carlos

Carlos, perfect Carlos. I need, dear listeners, to talk about my dear Carlos for a moment, for I have made a grave mistake. I have made the grave mistake of calling Carlos perfect. With his flawless hair, his soft, brown skin and the lab coat that calls out that he is important and smart it is easy to see how I got caught up in the believe of his perfection. Carlos got angry with me last night, listeners, I know you want to hear more about my relationship with Carlos. I know yuo want to hear more about how it is going well, but sometimes that is not the case and I cannot lie to you. I must be honest with you know, listeners, I must tell you that Carlos is a cruel man when he is angry. I cannot- I cannot bring myself to repeat a lot of what he said. It was intentional cruel and mean. I am not telling you this so that you come to hate Carlos, no one should hate Carlos. Carlos is a being that deserves so much love, perhaps and probably more than I can actually give him. 

 

Carlos is not a bad person. Carlos is not a good person. Carlos simple is a person. A person who is not from Night Vale originally, a person who does not 100% understand the ways of our little town but a person nonetheless who had done and is doing everything in his power to try and make sense of it, to try and become a part of it and I have to say that he is doing very well in that. Carlos is a person like Old Woman Josie or Steve Carlsberg. He has said some things, done some things, things that make people admire him, things that makes people distrust him, but he is just a person. A gorgeous, beautiful, wonderful person who I love. Yes, listeners, you did hear me right. I love Carlos. I love him probably even more after what happened last night. I love him with my entire being. I love him with every fibre of me, with every atom and I always will. 

 

I suppose I should actually tell the story. Me and Carlos were at my place last night. I was sat on my sofa and Carlos, wonderful Carlos, was lying on top of me with his head resting in my lap. Oh listeners, I cannot tell you how that felt. Like I was on fire and going to freeze at the same time. I was playing with that hair, that flawless, thick, soft hair of his. We weren't really talking much, we were just watched a Council issues mandatory show. We were just perfectly happy to be in each other company. 

 

When the show finished though, something changed in Carlos' being. "Cecil," he said, and I looked down at him, my hands still pulling through his hair. "Cecil let go." I hesitated, readers, I didn't think he was serious, I thought maybe he just wanted to get comfortable so I moved me hand awy from his perfect hair and Carlos stood up. I sat up straighter, ready to stop him from leaving because that's what it felt like he was going to do. He didn't. He just stood there, he ran his own hand through his hair before looking at me properly. There was pain, confusion, hurt on that perfect face of his and I wanted nothing more than to hold him until it all went away. 

 

"Cecil, we need to talk." Carlos said. He didn't look at me for very long, he seemed to have forgotten how eye contact worked. I looked at him though, trying very hard to make him remember. 

 

"So talk" I replied. I didn't understand what we needed to talk about. We had filled in all the paperwork about our dates and our time together, we had done everything by the book. We were going at a steady pace, everything was fine... Wasn't it? 

 

Carlos paced up and down my living room exactly three times before he spoke again. "I don't think this is working out, Cecil." I told me. 

 

"Of course it is working out" I replied instantly. I wasn't going to give him the time to continue that, I wasn't going to allow him to say anything more than implied that we couldn't be together, that we weren't perfect for each other. "Look at us, we're so happy, we're so comfortable together, we're... perfect. You're perfect." 

 

"That's the problem" Carlos snapped. I had never known such a harshness to come from Carlos. It didn't match his personality, it didn't match his beautiful face. It wasn't right for that face to be so crumpled up and pained. 

 

"What? How is being perfect together a problem?" I asked him. It didn't make sense to me and it made me wonder if wherever Carlos had come from they dated and mated in a different way. Well is that was the case Carlos was going to have to get used to it being this way. He was in Night Vale now and we have rules about how these things are done. We have to stick to them. 

 

"Perfect doesn't exist, Cecil." Carlos continued. He was meeting my eyes again now, he was staring right at me and there was something in those deep dark eyes that I couldn't stand looking at and this time it was my turn to look away. "I listen to your show, do you know that?" I didn't answered, I didn't need to. "Sometimes I think you think I don't because surely you wouldn't say all the things you do say if you knew I was listening it." 

 

I frowned now, staring at me lap. Carlos was confusing me. "I've never said anything bad..." 

 

"Exactly!" Carlos' outburst was full of frustration. He didn't like that I wasn't understand it, but how could I understand that I was apparently doing something wrong by talking positively to you, dear listeners. 

 

"You never say anything bad. You are so open and honest on your station" Carlos said, with a sigh. "You say all you're thinking on that stupid show of yours. You say things that might get you killed in this messed up town but you will never say anything bad about me." 

 

I was stunned, listeners. Carlos had managed to insult me, my show and this town in one little speech. I had no words. Carlos was right, except for the fact that my show is not stupid. Is it? Listeners please contact me to let me know you don't think that what I am doing in this little booth of mine is stupid? Let me know that I am not wasting my entire life here. But I am honest, I am the one who will say the necessary things, I am the one who informs you. 

 

"You can't even deny it," Carlos snapped. There was a fury in his voice and I pulled my legs up into the couch, wrapping my arms around them tightly and refused to look at him. "You think I'm so perfect. You always talk about me as though I'm some sort of ivory doll with no flaws or problems." 

 

"You /are/ perfect" I said or more I muttered into my knees. Why was Carlos angry that I saw him as flawless? 

 

"No, Cecil. I am not. I am not perfect, you need to stop thinking that." Carlos continued. "You need to stop it else... else I'm going to walk out of that door and right out of Night Vale and you will never see me again. Then you won't be able to talk crap on your little show about me." 

 

"Carlos..." My voice was close to breaking at this point, listeners. Carlos, who was so often the cause of my happiness was in this moment the cause of my heartbreaking. He was the reason I was sat there, refusing to move my head from my knees. I didn't want to see such anger on his face, I didn't want to see him angry at all but especially not when it was aimed in my direction. Especially not when I didn't understand the reason behind it. 

 

"You don't get it, Cecil, do you?" I heard a small thump and I guessed it was Carlos dropping himself to sit on the floor. Carlos' voice was lost now, somewhere between anger and sadness and that was worse. I was making him upset? What had I done? How was I to solve this? 

 

I shook my heads, because listeners, I didn't understand, I didn't get it at all. 

 

"I love you, Cecil." 

 

My heart flew at those words. I wasn't sure if I was excited or heartbroken to hear them. They were words I had hoped, longed for but never really expected because I knew I was not truly good enough for one such as Carlos. The words though... There was something behind them, regret, hurt that made me almost wish he hadn't said them. It almost felt like that would've hurt less. He shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't have, not right now. 

 

Listeners, my head flew up, staring at him almost the second he said it. He was looking right at me and I could see the tears in my eyes were mirrored in his eyes. I slipped onto my knees on the floor and sat in front of him, smiling at him. It was a smile with no happiness behind it, a smile born of pain and desperation. 

 

"If you love me, when why /WHY/ Carlos are you talking about leaving me, about leaving all of Night Vale?" I asked him, taking his hands in my own. "Surely I don't know so little about love to know that people don't do that when they are in love." 

 

"Sometimes they do," Carlos didn't move his hands away from mine but the tears broke through and I couldn't bear it. I was about to tell him not to cry but he spoke first, "Sometimes it is necessary for people to walk away, sometimes it's better for both involved even when they are in love." 

 

"No. Not this time. Not for us." I said. "Just tell me, tell me why it's so wrong, tell me, Carlos. Make me understand. You cannot leave Night Vale. You cannot." 

 

Carlos looked away for a moment before looking back at me. He moved one of his hands from mine and cupped my cheek before leaning in and kissing me gently and quickly on the lips. It was a sad action and it caused my own tears to break through. 

 

"Please." I murmured. "Please, Carlos, Carlos, make me understand." 

 

"You are putting so much pressure on me, Cecil. You are going around and calling me perfect, you are talking about me as though I am something more than just a mere man, you are talking as though I... as though I am incapable of making a mistake" Carlos said, softly. "It makes me want and need to try and be perfect for you. It makes me want to be that man you see and I'm not Cecil. I'm not perfect. No one is perfect, there is no such thing as perfect. People have flaws and mistakes and I need... I need you to give me the space to be allowed to make them without feeling like everyone needs to see me as perfect." 

 

I blinked a few times, looking at Carlos. The words were sinking in slowly and it hit me what I had been doing. All this time, these years, listeners, that I have been here talking about how I see Carlos and how perfect he feels to me and all that time I have been hurting him. 

 

"Okay, I'll stop, I promise you, from this moment on, I will not tell anyone that you are perfect." I told him. I even managed a weak laugh when I told him that I would continue to tell everyone that his hair is perfect and that nothing could stop me from doing that, nothing at all. Carlos agreed and accepted that Ii could do that but I'm not allowed to threatened the barber if he decides to get it cut at any point. I reluctantly agreed to that. Very reluctantly. 

 

So you heard it here listeners, you heard it directly from me. Carlos is not perfect. Carlos is just a person. Carlos is just a lovely person who wants to do some science. And I realised last night when it was too late that I never told him back. He told me he loved me before I ever told him and that, my dear listeners, is not acceptable. CARLOS I LOVE YOU. More so than ever. 

 

And now, the weather.


End file.
